


Sound the dread alarm

by Viking_In_Bavaria



Category: Cyberpunk 2077 (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I'll see myself out, Tinnitus, Trans V, Yes beta, and somehow turned into multiple chapters, does this mean I'm chipping in, it started with a drunk idea, the life and times of Nomad V, using cyberpunk for my first fic, we still die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-27
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-13 13:00:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29029101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Viking_In_Bavaria/pseuds/Viking_In_Bavaria
Summary: Jackie had left the Valentinos because his mother asked him to. Well...strongly suggested he consider it. By which she meant he better do it or else. And by the time she did ask him he had seen enough of gang life to not fight her on it. So he sobered up and went out to work for his dreams again. To make his mother proud. To maybe one day build a life for himself and his girl…which right now, Jackie considers to be a gigantic waste of time because he met this nomadic weirdo that managed to get him into a hail of bullets because apparently, he had no idea that breaking and entering is considered a crime even before you klep something.
Relationships: V & Jackie Welles
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15





	1. Sound the dread alarm

Jackie had left the Valentinos because his mother asked him to. Well...strongly suggested he consider it. By which she meant he better do it or else. And by the time she did ask him he had seen enough of gang life to not fight her on it.  
He was lying in the hospital's intensive care unit with the proof of the danger maring his body.   
So he agreed. Agreed to get out, turn his back on his brothers and return to a life that may not be much safer but which would let his mother sleep at night.  
His recovery was a long and hard one, having sustained more damage than he previously thought. 

It took even longer to get his relationships with his family and his friends back. It wasn't the first time they had seen him back home, only to abandon them again when he felt compelled to help his gang brothers.  
They were understandably wary of him.   
He felt terrible for what he had done. So he spent a couple nights in a drunken stupor, yelling at the only image of his father he had. He was so, so angry. At his father, at himself, at the universe in general. 

And he continued to be angry until one night he toppled a container, fell over it and cut his hand on a belt buckle. His father’s belt. Which he used to beat him and his mother bloody. In that moment Jackie knew deep in himself that this was not how he wanted to be. So he sobered up and went out to work for his dreams again. To make his mother proud. To maybe one day build a life for himself and his girl…

which right now, Jackie considers to be a gigantic waste of time because he met this nomadic weirdo that managed to get him into a hail of bullets because _apparently_ he had no idea that breaking and entering is considered a crime even _before_ you klep something.   
“God fucking damn it, V!” Jackie ducks behind two crates to avoid a volley of electrically charged pistol ammunition.   
“How can you not know this, you stupid gonk?!”. Across his hiding place he sees V run to make a graceful vault over a truck bed that ends in a painful tumble after his foot catches on the rim and he misses the landing, scraping over the pavement.  
He gives a low grunt and drags himself to sit with his back against the truck.   
“Jesus fuck, Jackie! I can’t know everything about your gonk city rules!”  
“That’s the most basic fucking rule there is! The hell are they teaching you in Nomad school?”  
V dares to peek over the truck bed with his gun in his hand, but immediately lets himself fall down again to avoid getting shot. Jackie sees him wince when he cuts his temple at a sharp piece of the wheel well.  
“Useful shit, obviously!” V hisses, pressing his fingers against the cut and inspecting the blood on his fingers. Jackie uses the moment to lob a grenade over the crates, praying that he got the general direction right. 

They both hold their breaths as they wait for the explosion. The Scavs yell as they find wherever Jackie had thrown the grenade and sound like they scuffle to get away.   
V, the impatient idiot, peaks around his truck tire and almost gets hit by shrapnel when the grenade finally detonates. 

Hearing the pained screams of Scavs, Jackie takes the opportunity to check the mag of his pistol. “Okay, fuck it. I got one more smoke grenade. I throw it, we delta. This gig is a wreck and we’ll be lucky to get away. You hold your breath and gun it to the right. Just keep straight at it until you run into the dumpsters and then to your left and you should probably find the gate. I’ll be right behind you.” says Jackie as he pulls the smoke grenade from his jacket. He goes to grab the pin and V calls out: “No, wait! I can fix this!”  
“You’ll be lucky to make it out in one piece!”, Jackie grunts out. 

V wipes his hand over his face, trying to get the blood from out of his eyes. “No, listen, I can fix this. I have a plan. I need you to cover me. Please, let me make this right! We can’t afford to not get this chip!”.   
Jackie groaned and took his hand away from the pin. “I swear to Santa Madre, V, if you get us flatlined and mamá brings us back to do it again, I’ll throw you to the wolves, you hear me?” V nods so eagerly, the blood from his forehead splatters on the truck’s paint job.“Lay it out.” V gets to his knees and peaks around the truck to take in the scene. He holsters his gun and starts: 

“I need you to get them to focus on the left side of the building. There’s some flammable canister leaning against the wall...if you could hit that, it would be preem. Would also take care of the gonk on the roof…” Jackie, too, has a quick look around his crates and sees the Scav he is talking about, in a bright neon jacket.   
“A’right, I’ll see what I can do. What about you?”   
“Don’t worry about me, I’ll get in there and get us the chip. I’ll yell for you when I get back. If I don’t…” V glances to the ground and then balls his fists. “Never mind, see you in a bit.” And then he tears from his hiding spot, leaving Jackie in a cloud of dust, barreling towards the building. “Ten compasión de mí, oh Dios.” Jackie mutters and he pulls out from behind his crates and starts shooting at the canisters.

V grins as he hears the explosion from his left, using his speed to push a Scav to the ground, purposefully stomping onto him as he presses on. He can do this. He got them into this mess, he could get them out of it.  
Or at least not let them come back to Padre with empty hands. He scales a car wreck and hauls himself over the bannister of the first floor of the apartment building and then scrambles to stand on the hand railing to jump and grab the second floor’s bannister. His arms shake with the effort to pull his entire body weight up and he feels a muscle in his armpit being pulled. That’s going to hurt like a bitch, come morning. 

He starts swinging sideways to get his legs over the railing. As he hooks his right foot over it he hears someone yell from below him and undo the safety of their weapon.  
He flinches and his sweaty hands almost lose their grip on the railing. A shot rings out and he hears the drop of a body below him. He risks a glance over his shoulder and sees Jackie barricaded behind another crate, nodding at him with an expression of concentration as he reloads his pistol.  
Jackie was the best choom. He pulls himself over the railing and clutters noisily to the ground. 

That could have gone better, but he couldn’t afford to waste more time if he is ever going to pull this off. He’s not even standing upright by the time he has his personal link hooked into the door.  
He could do this.  
These are low level Scavs. They may be violent and crafty and very happy to rip cybernetics out of people, but that doesn’t make them coding geniuses. So V doesn’t have to be one either.   
The encryption presented to him is about as standard as they get. But the password itself is only five characters long so V decides to brute force it, instead of trying to be clever.  
Seconds later, he hears the lock clicking. He tears the door open and hauls himself inside. It takes a bit for him to adjust to the low light. 

A ratty couch to one side of the room, opposite a low table with a broken TV, the floor littered with cartons of take-out food. And he’s pretty sure that’s black mold creeping up the walls.  
Disgusting.   
He sprints through the room and out the door. He takes a second to try and remember in which room he had seen the light go on, after the Scav with a mohawk had entered the building with the chip.He comes to a skidding halt after a couple of steps when he remembers that they made their way around the building so the side he saw then is the other side now.  
God, he's wasting time. Jackie was going to murder him. 

He finds the door to the room and when it wouldn’t budge, he pries his fingers between the door and the frame and pulls with all his strength.  
The metal groans and complains. V closes his eyes for a second as the electrics spark and shower his face in tiny pricks of light. He wrenches the door open with a triumphant shout and steps into the room.  
There, on the desk, lies the chip they came for. He grabs it. 

A hand comes out of the dark corner behind him, janking him by the collar of his jacket and throwing him into a shelf, its contents flying every which way. V cries out from surprise and pain but not letting go of the chip, even as he crashes to the ground and twists his wrist because he refuses to open his hand to catch himself.   
The Scav with the mohawk, that had been hiding in the corner, steps toward him and brings his boot down on V’s arm. Pain flashes white hot up to his shoulder and V can’t keep a high pitched whine from slipping out of him.  
Mohawk bends down to pry the chip out from his hand at which point V uses the leverage his stuck arm gave him to bring his boots up into his attacker. 

The Scav swears at him but has to step off his arm to regain his balance.V scrambles to stand and delta it out of there, but Mohawk is quick to recover, setting after him and catching him right outside the door. He slams him into the wall and pulls a gun, pressing it into his head. V brings up a leg to kick his attacker anywhere, preferably painful, and hits something that makes him hunch over. V barely manages to get his arm between himself and the gun when the Scav decides to pull the trigger.   
The gun goes off right next to his ear and for a short moment, V believes he is dead.  
But the bullet zips past him and buries itself in the wall and V grasps for the knife he has in his jacket and rams it into the Scav’s side. Once. Twice. Three and then four times until he feels him finally going down. 

He sees blood spurting out of his mouth, sees him claw at his side, desperate for breath. The situation finally catches up to V and he falls to his knees, next to him.  
His hands shake, his head hurts and feels light at the same time. The room is spinning and he feels like he cannot draw enough air in.  
He can’t hear.  
The Scav is moving his lips, his hands are scraping over the floor and the blood at his mouth becomes foamy from the air he does manage to pull in.  
And V can’t. Hear. Him. 

Just as he realises that, he becomes aware of an incessant ringing in his ear. It becomes louder and louder until it is all he can focus on.Until it starts gaining and losing volume to the rhythm of the blood thumping in his neck.  
He can’t hear.  
V pulls himself to his feet, stumbling a few steps and falls down again. He clings to a radiator to keep from sinking down further. His legs are shaking. Hell, his whole body is a shuddering mess.  
As he gets up and takes more steps he snaps his fingers next to his ear. 

He doesn’t hear it. 

There are no noises coming from outside and V doesn’t know if it is because the fight is over or because of the ringing. He stumbles his way down the stairs and slumps into the wall at the end of it.  
Everything hurts. And he still can’t hear and he is starting to panic. He won’t know if anyone is coming. He feels blind. He has to get outside.   
He pushes himself off the wall and prays to anyone that will hear him that there is no one on this floor.  
He finds the second set of stairs he needs to go down and by whatever shred of luck he has left, sees the reflection of someone in a window. As if on autopilot, he pulls his gun from its holster and shoots at whoever is there. 

His ears ring, his gun is silent. 

He doesn’t know if he’s hitting anyone but he starts running nonetheless. When he reaches the stairs he is too afraid to turn around so he stumbles them down backwards. His foot catches on the faded carpet and he falls. He manages to hit the last stair and the impact pushes all the air from his lungs. V’s pretty sure he’s crying out from the pain but there is no sound. He keeps pulling the trigger of his pistol until he finally realises that there is no recoil anymore. Tears are blurring his vision and he can’t make out if there is anyone at the top of the stairs. 

V tosses the gun and with a strength he didn’t know he still had left, hauls himself upright and runs towards the exit. And then he is outside, yelling for Jackie.  
The night air is cool, the yellow light of the street lamps is soothing. But he still can’t hear and he’s not sure anymore if he’s really calling out for his choom. Just as he feels his throat starting to scratch, his only indication that there must be sound involved in what he’s doing, a hand seizes his shoulder and pulls him backwards. 

V screams and pulls his fist back to smash into the gonk. But his assailant catches his fist and then grabs his shoulders to shake him. It was Jackie. He had almost hit his friend. He sees that Jackie was talking to him but he can’t make it out. V is so relieved to see he can’t help the stupid grin spreading over his face. He pulls his still closed fist up and presents Jackie with the chip. Jackie stops talking and just stares at V, completely befuddled. Then he swats him over the head and pulls them both towards the gate they wanted to hightail it out of from the beginning. 

Jackie is unsure about how they actually made it. Of course, he knows what exactly he did and he can hazard a good guess what V attempted and ultimately succeeded in.  
What he means is, that he has no idea how this managed to fly in the first place. Him, shooting blindly at the most hazardous looking objects and V doing fuck knows what and doing his very best to get himself killed, Nomad gonk he is.   
Jackie all but carries V, whose legs buckled out from under him as soon as he showed Jackie the chip, away from the building into the streets.  
He’s exhausted but he can still hear the Scavs yelling and needs to get them away from there. V misses a step and digs his hand into Jackie's arm that he has wound around his ribs.   
Jackie grunts when he feels the fingernails biting into the scratches he received when sliding along the pavement, trying to get to a different cover. He can’t slow down for V to get his bearings so he pulls him up and over his shoulder like a sack of stolen implants and starts to jog. V retches when he gets a shoulder to the gut but doesn’t fight him.   
Jackie keeps up the speed until he finally sees their car.  
Well...V’s car but...he has a key.  
So he feels comfortable calling it their car.  
He loves that car!  
Not as much as V, though, but no one loves a car that much. 

“Hey! There he is!”. A group of Scavs come running on the street they’re on. Jackie curses and desperately presses the button on the car key.  
“Damn it, V! Couldn’t have yelled a little louder back there?!” He janks open the passenger door and throws V into the seat. He hears him grunt but can’t afford to check on him just yet.  
He slides himself over the hood of the car, trying to save time.   
The zippers of his trousers tear scratches into the paint and he mentally prepares himself for V’s anguish when he has a chance to see it. He gets behind the wheel, pulls the car onto the street and stomps the accelerator through.  
Shots are being fired at them but he doesn’t hear anything hit the car. He takes as few turns as possible, trying to preserve their speed over having an obscure route. When he finally manages to find a busy main street, he weaves the car into the traffic and when they reach a bustling district center he releases his death grip on the steering wheel and relaxes back into the seat. 

Jackie can’t help barking out a laugh. “We did it! V, choom, we fucking did it!” he punches V into the shoulder and doesn’t fight the laughter that keeps crawling up his throat. A red light stops their journey and Jackie turns to give V a huge grin but V wasn’t looking at him. He is hunched in on himself, his head pressed against the door, his shoulders shaking.  
Jackie watches him raise his hand and snapping his fingers in an increasingly erratic manner. He couldn’t be too sure, but he thinks that V might be crying.  
“Hey choom, what’s got you in a fix?” Jackie reaches for V but when he touches his shoulder, his friend flinches so hard he hits his head on the door.  
“V? What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”.   
Yep, that’s a whimper. Definitely crying.   
“V?” But he doesn’t react, just keeps clicking his fingers. “Okay, hold on. Padre can wait, I’m taking you to Vik.” He pulls out from behind the car before him and runs the light, getting honked at by the cars attempting to cross.  
He tries calling Misty to give them a heads up but she doesn't pick up. The gonk driver before him manages to stall his car and another driver clogs the road by trying to drive past and getting stuck next to someone else, who is letting a passenger out of her car. 

Snap. Snap. Snap. Snap. 

Jackie honks at them. 

Snap. Snap.

“Get outta my way, you morons!” 

Snap. Snap. Snap.

“Just fucking drive! Just go around!” 

Snap. Snap. Snap. Snap. Sna-

“Jesus CHRIST, V! Stop that shit!” 

-nap. Snap. Snap. Snap. Like he hadn’t heard him. Jackie forces himself to calm down and turns back to yell at the cars. 

“Mierda, move! Estúpido!”   
He had enough. He pulls back as far as he can and yanks the car to the right and up the walkway. He honks for people to get out the way and curses some more at the stuck cars as he passes them.   
He knows these roads and only a couple minutes should have passed, but it feels like hours by the time he pulls up in front of Misty’s shop and V’s constant clicking is driving him into a rage.  
V’s hurt and not thinking straight, he knows this. But he can’t help it when his hands tighten around the wheel and his eyebrows draw together in irritation.

He can just try to keep a grip on it. He gets out of the car and stomps around to the passenger side, pulling the door open. V pulls to the left when his support falls away and for a moment stops with his incessant clicking.  
It’s not his fault, he reminds himself. Making the effort to breathe deeply, Jackie reaches out in an attempt to soothe him.  
His hand easily covers the side of V’s head. He knows V hates to hear it but he _is_ a bit small and on the lean side. And under Jackie’s hand he looks even smaller.  
“Come on, choom. Vik will have a look. See what’s going on, yeah?” he pets carefully over V’s faded haircut and then takes his arms to pull him up. 

Misty looks up when she hears the door ring and puts on a bright smile to greet whoever comes through but immediately gets overwhelmed with concern when she sees Jackie walk in, a dazed V under his arm and tucked into his side.   
“Oh no, Jackie! What happened?” She steps out from behind her counter to meet them halfway.  
“Heya Misty. I’m sorry, but is Vik in? V is...we got into a fight.” Misty’s frown deepens as she lets her gaze wander over V, blood smeared over his face, standing in Jackie’s half embrace and his whole aura dull.   
“I’m so sorry. We’ll get this sorted, V, don’t worry.” she tries to reassure him but he doesn’t look at her.  
“Vik’s in, in his shop, probably watching a match. Go right through.”  
“Thanks, chica. I’ll be up later, yes?” Misty gives a smile and pats his arm as she steps aside to let them through.  
“You bring him to Vik and the rest comes later.”  
Both men make their way through her shop and the last thing she sees is them stumbling down the stairs before the back door closes. 

Vik is yelling at the screen, because honestly what is this gonk even doing in the ring? Which corpo moron thought it would be a preem idea to get this sack of shit into gloves?  
His style’s shit, his form’s shit and the way he’s holding his arm, that bone is broken to shit as well.  
Also, Vik didn’t like his attitude.   
He throws himself back into his chair, vindicated in his exasperation, as the gates to his shop clatter open. He doesn’t turn from the fight to face the newcomer, he never does. His regulars know this. And the new kids gotta learn. Boxing first. Jacked up yuppies looking for chrome, second.  
“Vik, we need help.” That is, until he hears it is Jackie, pleading with him to help. Vik spins on his chair. First observation: 

Jackie? Upright.   
Looking at him? Yes  
Talking? Yes.  
Blood? Yes.  
His? Unsure.

  
V? Possibly not upright.  
Looking at him? No.  
Talking? No.  
Blood? Yes.  
His? Certainly, he sees the cuts on his face.

“Get him in the chair. Tell me what happened.” Vik stood and went to pick up gloves and diagnostic instruments, as well as the hypos and threat.  
“We had a run in with the Scavs.” Jackie starts as he puts V into the chair. “He got a cut from some metal. He climbed a couple stories and then something happened and I don’t know!”  
V is trying his best to curl into himself but Jackie has his hands on him, pushing him to lie on his back with his legs straight out.  
“Don’t worry about that. Tell me what you noticed.” Vik pulls a trolley over to place his tools and goes to flip on the lights. 

“Ehrm..” Jackie scratches his head as he’s trying to get his thoughts in order. “He’s not walking properly, misses steps. He seems confused. I think he was stumbling when he came outta that building.” 

Head trauma? Becoming likely. 

As Vik leans over V to get a better look at the damage, Jackie claps his hands.  
“Wait, his hearing. Something’s wrong with that, he keeps snapping his fingers and he didn’t react when I spoke to him. All twitchy.”  
Right as Jackie mentions that, Vik finds a tell-tale graze of a bullet in the short hair on the side of V’s head. 

Head trauma? Shot. Hearing loss. Maybe hit his head. Certainly.  
Fatal? Still capable of fine motor function. Still reacts to stimuli. Pending.

“He was yelling for me and I got mad but he couldn’t hear. I feel terrible now”  
“Was he intelligible?”

“Yah, he was just really loud.”

Fatal? Speech intact. Chances stand. Pending, but unlikely. 

Vik pulls V’s shirt down and punches the hypo into his chest. V never sees it coming because he is too busy squinting into the operation lights and prodding at his ears.  
The effect is immediate. His entire body uncoils as the muscle relaxants and the sedative hit. V’s head lolls to the side, his eyes find Vik’s and hold his gaze until they flutter shut, sending him off into oblivion.  
Vik sighs and connects V to the diagnostic ports of the chair.  
“A’right, Jackie. Sit down and tell me a story. I got to stitch up this gonk. And after that, we’re having a look at you.”


	2. Through our primal body

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whelp, as it goes, I kinda started developing all sorts of ideas for V as I was meandering about.  
> I got myself a tinnitus last year and struggled quite a bit with it.  
> So I may or may no be using V as affordable therapy. 
> 
> Thank you to ForOneSweetMomentIamWhole! for being my beta :)

Returning to himself feels like the most uncomfortable he has ever been. As soon as V becomes aware of anything he notices the pain. In his arms and his shoulders, his head and what the hell happened to his back?  
And right after he checks all those off, he notices the ringing. He remembers the gig and his half baked plan and the Scav in the corner...and the gun. And then the fear.  
He feels overwhelmed.  
  
What is he going to do without his hearing? He squeezes his eyes shut, desperately trying to shove the fear and hopelessness steadily rising up his gut. Then, something shuffles to his left and V’s eyes snap open.   
He hears that. He _hears_ it!  
He’s up like a shot but his head spins like crazy and unable to keep the room straight, he flops back, groaning with the additional stress on his bruised back. 

“Do me a favour, kid, and don’t kill yourself right after I invested time in you?” 

Vik’s sitting on a chair to his left, giving him an unimpressed stare. V rubs his hand over his face and flinches when his fingers catch on the stitches at his temple.  
“Stop touching stuff, let me check you over first.”  
Feeling guilty, he drops his hand and lowers his gaze, to avoid catching Vik’s eye. As Vik pulls in his monitors to consult, V has time to finally notice his arms. They are still sporting his tattoo, which was lovely, but more importantly they are naked and he is covered by a blanket.  
Not his shirt. And most definitely not his binder.

A cold dread settles on his chest and he reflexively clutches the blanket to himself, drawing his knees up to cover himself further.  
He’s been made.  
Vik stills next to him and V feels his gaze burn into him. For some reason he thinks that if he doesn’t turn to him, it will continue to not be real.  
“V…” Vik starts, voice gentle as if not to startle him. “I saw the bruising on you when I pulled your collar down to administer the hypo. I had to make sure it wasn’t serious. It’s fine, I know.” Eyes wide with surprise, V does turn to him. “You know?”  
Vik looks like he wants to slap his hand to his face in disbelief. “Jesus, kid. Jackie told me the very first day, before he brought you here.”  
V’s eyes widened even further. “Jackie knows?”  
This time, Vik does slap his hand to his forehead. “V, you really think you can live with someone as good at people watching as Jackie, in close quarters no less, and believe you can get away with a detail like that?”  
Suddenly V feels incredibly dumb and looks away again, burying his head between his knees.

“Don’t be mad at him, he told me because he knew you never would. You put your health in my hands, I need to know these things. The gel residue on your arm would have probably given you away. At the latest, it would have shown up on any blood work I run on you, anyway. And besides, what sort of ripperdoc do you think I am? I recognize a voice implant when I see one.”  
Without thinking, V reaches up to trace his fingers over the thin, tarnished silver lines along the column of his throat. “So, now that this is out in the open, you really need to let me have a look at that. Shoddy work on the lining, I can do better.”  
Feeling self conscious, V drops his hand from his neck.  
  
Vik starts to tap away on his screen. “I just didn’t want to bring it up and spook you away. Oh, by the way, that blackwork tattoo? Lovely piece, but it’s the worst possible surface to check for bruising, lemme tell you. What ink did they use? Mine never turn out that shade. If my optics weren’t able to pick out the colour nuances we’d still be trying to figure out which part of you got battered.”  
V’s mind was spinning from the sudden topic change. Vik knows. So does Jackie. They have known the entire time. Does mamá Welles know? Misty? How is he going to move on with this?  
Instead of formulating any of this into a question he opens his mouth and out comes: “Bruising?” 

Vik huffs out a laugh. “Yeah, bruising. Your entire back is one blood clot. What did you do?”  
“...fell down some stairs.”   
“Of course you did. Well, additionally to your stair memento you have a cut from a truck, Jackie told me, a scratch from a close encounter with a gun- don’t touch that!”  
V had lifted his hand to feel along the left side of his skull and drops it immediately.  
“Probably still pretty raw and I don’t need you introducing more bacteria into this. As I was saying, date with a projectile. Some properly pulled muscles, the scan from your arm came back clear but the one from your shoulders makes you look ten years older. What did you do as a kid? Play rugby with the coyotes? Oh, and a concussion. Minor, but still. Also, how did you get that bump at the back of your head?”  
Vik gives him a look that tells him that he really wants to know how he managed.Probably hoping to hear an epic story.

“Got shoved into a shelf?” It probably shouldn’t sound like a question.  
“Into a shelf.” Vik sighs.   
“Scav was hiding in a corner. Didn’t see him.” V defends himself.  
“Of course you didn’t.”  
At this point V feels a little bit patronized.  
Before he can give a retort, Vik abandons his screen and points a light directly into V’s eye. “Ocular reflex? Good. Does this cause you any glitches?”  
V goes to turn his head away but Vik catches his chin and holds him still. “No.” he answers, a bit petulant.  
“Good.” Vik stashes his light in his shirt pocket and turns his patient’s head a bit this way and a bit that way. “Well, the bruising will heal, take it easy for a couple days to give your body a chance to catch up. The cuts on your face will likely scar. But it should be minimal. Just don’t prod it. Do you feel nauseated?”  
V thinks about it for a bit but declines. “Well, in that case, you are free to leave. Slowly! Jackie’s probably still with Misty, waiting for you. I’ll get you a shirt to wear. Jackie managed to get your jacket off, it’s over there on the trolley.”  
V looks up and is glad to find it intact and only minimally splattered. 

Then he asks: “What about the ringing in my ears?”   
Vik pauses on his way to a locker to fetch the shirt. “Your ears are still ringing?”  
“Yes? I mean, it is way better but...it’s still kinda loud. And annoying.”   
Vik sighs and continues to fetch the shirt. “Sounds like you got yourself a tinnitus.” 

“What? But...this will go away again, yes?” V gets presented with a faded, vaguely orange shirt with a suspiciously shaped hole in the side and Vik turns around to let him get dressed. “It can. But it doesn’t have to. Sorry, kid.”  
V feels overrun and can only stare at the shirt in his hands. “But...you can fix this, right?”  
Vik sighs deeply and rubs his forehead. “Your initial hearing loss was due to the trauma, the noise of the shot and subsequent stress. But the tinnitus itself can have...lots of reasons. It is very likely that it was caused by your injury and I have done all I can but if it stays...it stays.”  
He moves to sit in his chair again, looking at his TV screen but not really watching what is happening on it.  
  
“But...you’re a ripperdoc. There has to be something you can do!” V yells.   
Vik folds his arms and stares at something on his desk. “There are therapies but they are fucking expensive. A couple-months-rent-next-to-Arasaka-HQ kind of expensive. And even those don’t offer you a guarantee. There are implants and they work for some people but for others, they don’t. And they retain the tinnitus in their new, shiny chrome ears that cost more than a car. I did all I could. You’ll need to live with it.” 

Suddenly V feels like an ass.  
Vik had done everything he could to make him well again and there he goes, being a dickwipe. He feels hot shame over his ungratefulness and makes a conscious effort to stuff his fear and disappointment into a box and bury it.  
This was not the time.  
V swallows drily. “I’m sorry. Thank you for fixing me up.” Even to his own, ringing ears, he sounded like a corpo trying to get the media off his back with some hollow platitudes.  
He watches Vik, who flexes his crossed arms and gives a long breath out. 

“It’s fine, I’ve heard worse complaints from people who had their situation turned upside down.”  
Pulling the shirt over his head and sliding off the chair, V feels even worse. Vik sounds like he hurt him with his outburst and his stilted apology. Exactly the opposite of what V wanted to achieve.  
He can’t stand the tension hanging in the air. It makes him anxious. So he tries again.  
“I’m really sorry, Vik. That was uncalled for. Thank you for doing what you could. I’d probably be way worse if it weren’t for you.” Immense relief floods him when Vik looks up to give him a warm smile.  
“Apology accepted. I forgive your gonkness.”

V can’t help the amused snort escaping him.  
“You know, I have this thing I’ve been sitting on for forever. Come over here” Vik waves him over and turns to rummage through a drawer. Curious, V gingerly takes a few steps to the desk.  
“Grabbed it during a conference. It was used as a prop but it’s like new. Thought you could use it but we were still pretending I didn’t know anything, so it’s been sitting here for weeks.” Vik turns to give V an exasperated look.   
“I mean, seriously V? I’m a doctor. I know things!” He turns around with a tiny little implant in the open hand he presents V. “Hormone implant. Top shelf, too. They got funding and now only corpos can afford this puppy.” 

V stares at the implant in his hand and feels sick to his stomach.  
He didn’t want that.  
He was fine where he was, with the low dose gel.  
Vick looks at him expectantly. “Well, what do you think?”  
“Ehrm..” V stammers, trying desperately to find the words. “That’s...that’s great! But...I…” he wrings his hands. “Thank you, for thinking of me, but...I don’t want any higher doses. The gel is fine. And I’m fine with...where I am.” 

“Oh, no. This thing can be calibrated to any dose you want. Down to the nanogram.” Vik assures him. “You just need to come back every now and then for a refill. With a low dose like you have it with the gel, I’m assuming something like..what? 20 milligramm? Once a year, maybe. This would make it easier for you, is all I’m saying.”  
His voice is calm and understanding, yet V still feels an uncomfortable mix of gratitude, electrifying delight and a suspicious desire to wait for the other shoe to drop.  
There is always some catch, it can’t be that easy.  
V knows he is all over the place and people like to put others into neatly defined categories. He’s still expecting to be treated differently, now that he knows that Vik knows. Has already formulated two strong arguments to defend himself but he starts with a question.

“So...you don’t mind that I’m...not all the way male?”   
Vik groans, like V just said the dumbest possible thing.   
“That's literally the least weird thing I've seen. You're as much as a man as you want to be. And if you are not and still want to be called by male pronouns, then fine. You also don't have to explain yourself to me at all. To no one.”  
V is unconvinced but he still feels a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. Maybe, with Vik at least, it could be this easy. 

“A’right.” he agrees with a small voice. “Sounds like a good idea, then.” He gets ordered back to the chair and Vik wastes no time, hitting him with the local anesthetic. As he works the implant into V’s arm he thinks to himself, that V was probably never really confronted with the terminology surrounding his situation and that is why he was so highly uncomfortable with not being anything specific.  
People like him are nothing new but the topic tends to be of little interest in the communities outside the city. They have different priorities.  
Survival comes first.  
Shelter and food.  
Then transport, gear and defense.  
Then the community itself.  
And maybe after that they would start asking questions about the individual. And the Nomads probably never put any value on it, since they’re busy surviving on hostile land. 

“Term you're looking for is non-binary by the way. Plenty people who are. Plenty more who don't talk about it, though. Nothing wrong with you.” V is surprised how having a term for what he is, is putting him at ease.  
Like he finally slots into place in this messy society and he doesn't have to grasp for words anymore when people question his existence.That he, too, belongs. And then he feels terrible for needing it.  
Because the Bakkers have never made him feel less for it. They may have been confused by his antics, to the point where they picked a letter to call him by instead of the ever changing names he was trying out but at the end of the day, they let him be.  
He was valued for what he could do for the family. 

The confusion must have shown on his face, because Vik just sighs, finishes up the implant and settles with the fact that V’s going to take a lot of time getting over that particular hangup. Probably going to be weird about it for the next couple times he visits until he has settled into the new normal. For a Nomad, Vik decides, V is terrible with change.

But he likes the kid, so he’s willing to give him time.

“That’s it. You’re done. I set it to the dosage I mentioned earlier but if you ever want to change it, just hook yourself up with that diagnostic program I gave you, couple weeks ago. Same principle as with your optics. Get your token with your profile and adjust the config. And don’t try changing the tabs to spaces again. If you need help, lemme know.”  
V takes some time to inspect the site where the implant was inserted. Vik had been careful and placed it in one of the lines of his tattoo, so the cut wouldn’t disturb the artwork. V knows that since Vik had tattoos himself, it was probably a no-brainer to him, but he still feels warm when he thinks about the consideration.   
“Thank you. What do I owe you?” 

“Don’t mention it.” Vik says, pulling his gloves to the tip of his fingers and tugs them like a slingshot, firing them into a bin. “The gonk who asked for it initially got herself flatlined, because she slept with the husband of some high up guy from militech. But she already paid for it. So I’m considering giving it to you for zilch, as her making up for her transgressions. Karma, Misty would say.” And with that he rolls himself back to his desk to pick up on the boxing match.  
“Promise me, you’ll be careful for a few days.”   
V chuckles. “I promise.”

Vik nods and then makes a waving hand gesture for V to scram. “You can settle with Misty about the money for getting fixed up. I owe her some eddies.” V makes an agreeing noise and grabs his jacket. Trying to put it on with his bruised back turns into a bit of a painful undertaking. Vik stands once more and grabs it from him, helps him push his arms through the sleeves.  
He pulls it up carefully, so it sits properly and gently smoothes the shoulders out. Then he returns to finally catch up with the boxing. V decides to leave him to his entertainment and carefully climbs up the stairs. He’s out of breath at the top and his muscles are jittery.  
He pets the naked cat sitting in the alleyway to soothe himself. It meows at him and bumps its head into his hand insistently. He gives it a final affectionate pat, then ventures on into Misty’s shop.  
The lights are low and the room is empty. The air is heavy with some herbal smell and V’s pretty sure he sees smoke hanging in the air, under the lights. The absence of the street noise lets his new tinnitus come back with a vengeance. He shakes his head in irritation, pushing his fingers into his ears in an attempt to block it out. But of course, it just keeps ringing and he stands there looking like a gonk. 

Absolutely preem.

“Jackie? Misty?” V calls into the space. For a moment he believes the shop deserted until he hears a shuffling from the room over. Jackie comes bursting through the door, closely followed by Misty, who has a warm smile on her face. “V! Mi cielito!” Jackie cries out and swoops in to gather V into a hug.   
“Ow! Ow ow ow, Jackie! Don’t!”   
His arms immediately stop squeezing and V is put down very gently.   
“I’m so sorry, I got carried away. I was so worried!”  
“Don’t have to worry anymore, I’m fine.” V pats his shoulders. 

“Listen, V...” Jackie has a sheepish look on his face. “I’m not sure if you remember but I got kinda angry with you and may have yelled at you and I just wanted to say, I’m sorry.”  
Try as he might, V really can’t remember Jackie being anything but helpful so it is the easiest thing in the world to forgive him. Jackie looks relieved.  
“Don’t start with the snapping again, though. That was really driving me nuts.”  
V’s good mood fell a little at the reminder. The stupid ringing in his ears. It will maybe never go away again and the thought scares him. “Yeah, I won’t. Don’t worry.” He gathers himself to face Misty. “Hey, Misty. Sorry for not being good company earlier.” She laughs.  
“Don’t worry about it. I’m just really glad you’re okay now. You’re aura was very dull, you know? But now you are looking better. Heaps.” 

V doesn’t really know what she’s on about, but he agrees regardless. “Listen, Vik said to settle with you about the treatment? Said he owes you.”  
A look of confusion creeps on her face. “He did?” V nods, slowly.  
Her smile comes back on her face. “Oh, he probably only wanted to let you off the hook without admitting that he cares. He doesn’t owe me anything. And really, it’s very obvious he likes you guys. I don’t know who he’s trying to convince apart from himself.”

“No. Come on, Misty.” V protests. “We hijacked his evening without warning and he spent I don’t know how long on me.” Misty shakes her head. “Nope, you’re free to go. It’s fine. He wouldn’t do that if he really minded.”   
Jackie is happy with the news and goes to embrace Misty in a hug goodbye. ”Vik is a good friend.” he proclaims. “Thank you for letting me talk your ear off, Misty.” he gives her cheek a kiss and she giggles.  
V, still reeling from the exchange, doesn’t even hug back when Misty comes over to carefully put her arms around him. “It’s really okay, don’t worry about it.” she whispers to him.  
He can only nod. She lets go of him and goes to sit behind her counter and begins fiddling with some trinket.  
“Come on, V. We gotta hit up Padre before we go home.” 

Oh, right. Padre. 

“The chip!” V exclaims. He had completely forgotten about it. Jacky pulls it from his jacket. “Don’t worry, choombah. Got it right here. You dropped it, when Vik gave you the good stuff.”   
Feeling lighter than he has so far this day, V follows Jackie, who is already out the door. As he passes Misty’s counter, he stops and digs around in his pockets.  
He pulls out a bundle of cash he klepped out of one of the boxes on the Scav property, before they were discovered. “At least, for the material.” he insists and deposits it in front of her. Before she can protest, he hobbles out of the door, as fast as he can.  
He smiles when he hears Misty yelling after him. Now, to Padre. And after that he really, really wants to take a nap. Or several. God, he was tired. Jackie is already starting the engine and its gentle purr conceals the worst of the ringing.  
A fucking delight, that.  
He reaches for the passenger door, when his gaze lands on the hood of his car. 

“Jackie, what the _FUCK_?!”


	3. Sound the reveille to be or not to be

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ForOneSweetMomentIamWhole! is still the best

“But why the fucking car, Jackie?!" Five minutes into the ride, and V is still inconsolable.  
"Why did you do this to my car? How can you disrespect me like that?"  
"Now you’re being dramatic. It’s just scratches."  
"Just scratches? This car is family, do you know what we lived through?"  
"Oh great, there you go again with your weird Nomad mores."  
"You’re the one who freaked out over a moth in your room. _That_ is weird."  
"That was a polilla negra and it brings death! That isn’t weird, it’s just common sense."  
"It was a moth!"  
"You know what? Next time that moth comes into my room, I’ll send it your way. See what it gets you!"  
"Yeah? Well it won’t scratch up my car so maybe I’ll do the next gig with the moth!"

Jackie gives a snorting laugh at the mental image of V trying to negotiate payment for a moth. V crosses his arms and stares out of the window, still sulking. Jackie sighs.  
"Hey, choom. I really am sorry about scratching your car’s paint." A few moments go by and the silence hangs uncomfortably between them.  
"Yeah, I know. I'm being a dick." V admits.  
Arguing with Jackie took his focus off his bruised back. And his pulled muscles. And the fact that he wasn’t as smooth as he previously thought, apparently. And then, the ringing in his ears. God, how was he supposed to get through the day? Let alone, the next one? He carefully runs his fingers along the stitches on his temple.  
"You’re still gonna fix it, though."  
"What? No." Jackie shakes his head and pulls the car onto the distributor road leading to Heywood. "Your lack of common sense regarding property law is what got us into this mess to begin with, chico! You’re doing half. At least!"  
V huffs, annoyed. "Are you ever going to let that go?"  
"Not likely. But I’ll let you have some of the good Tequila to help you get over it. _After_ we’re done with the car."

  
They bicker about the correct standards to teach people for the rest of their ride to Padre’s shop. V insists the Nomad standards apply, because they are concerned with the basics in life and are not hopped up on all those extra fancies around survival that you technically don’t need. Jackie has a couple good and several flimsy arguments for why Nomads are behind the times and are, as such, unable to provide the standard.  
Especially for city life, which he considers to be the superior choice and the way of the future. By the time they arrive Jackie claims home advantage, which cannot be argued and V concedes the point.  
He fucked up. Jackie’s right.  
"It will be a good story to tell, though." Jackie comforts him, as he exits the car and slams the door shut. "Let’s just not tell my Ma about it, yes? Like...ever." he urges. V’s eyes widen as he imagines the sort of dressing down Mama Welles would give them and agrees to not breathe a word about this to her.

Padre is delighted when they present the chip to him. He proclaims that he never doubted them and is happy about their work. V watches with morbid fascination as some of Padre’s goons drag a body out of the shop, leaving behind a bloody trail. Meanwhile, Padre himself blesses them in the name of the Lord and hands them a few eddies extra, as a reward for a job well done. And V can’t help but wonder at his dichotomy.  
Padre feels like a mean spirited granddad with a fat wallet that he uses to spoil his various grandkids rotten for doing their chores. That just happen to be illegal. The lot of them. As long as they behaved, of course.

V thinks that it is a good thing he never had a problem with doing as he is told. Prefers it, actually. Makes it easier for him to not land on people’s bad side, trying to figure out what they expected of him.  
His clan always thought that he was uniquely unsuited to leadership.  
Jackie, on the other hand, had some issues with blindly following orders, his personal moral compass stronger than ever, now that it was back in working order. So they made a good team. V taking orders for them, like a good little soldier.  
Agreeing and smiling, making contract discussions a breeze and endearing them to their fixers and Jackie watching his back, so that the client doesn’t exploit him.  
Or the fixer, for the matter. And in turn he doesn’t have to let himself be ordered around or even be cordial when he really doesn’t like the client. Misty once called it playing ‘good cop and bad cop’.  
Jackie is still amused about the thought of himself being a cop.

They leave Padre’s to drive home to the Coyote Cojo. Despite both keeping mum about their escapades, Mama Welles finds V’s injuries to be just offensive enough to warrant a talking to. "Jesucristo, V. Why do you always come home injured? Why do you make me worry? Jaquito! Por qué mi hijo está rayado?"  
V doesn’t want to but he blushes all over when he hears Seniora Welles refer to him as her son. Going to Night City was done out of his own volition, because he wouldn’t bow to Snake Nation.  
Unlike the rest of the Bakkers. Yet he still misses belonging to a family. And Mama Welles didn’t think twice before claiming this strange Nomad as one of her sons as soon as Jackie brought him home.  
Just like she had done with Vik when he came by the first time to check on Jackie after a nasty boxing injury. V wonders when they will have another honorary sibling sitting down at the table.

Jackie navigates his way around his mother’s questions. That it was only a routine gig to ferry information from A to B. Which was technically not incorrect. And the reason why they were gone the night was because V was apparently assaulted by gang members for no reason at all so he made sure to take him to Vik. But he was fine, of course. V just dutifully nods whenever she looks at him for confirmation.  
V thinks that Mama Welles doesn’t believe a thing they tell her. But that she chooses to because it makes her feel better. She sighs and hugs her son close to her. Then she smiles at V and holds out a hand. "Ven, coyotecito. Let’s get some food into you and Jaquito."  
V groans at the nickname. He mentions trying to tame a coyote for a pet _once_ and now he is the tiny cute coyote and Jackie will never not introduce him as such to new patrons of the bar. V hadn’t even succeeded with the taming. He just got bit and had a rabies scare. But if he complains, Seniora Welles will tell him that the name was good enough for her bar so it would be good enough for him. So he doesn’t, just takes her hand and lets her feed him.

  
Jackie and him stay up after his mom goes to bed, to drink a beer and reflect upon their day. Or days, rather.  
“That?” Jackie says before draining the rest of his beer “Was one hell of a gig.” V only hums in agreement. He barely touches his beer, only sliding his fingers along the condensation of the glass. He feels Jackie’s eyes rest on him after putting his glass down.  
“You’re probably still pretty out of it, aren’t you?”  
“Yeah...yeah, I’m still…” V swallows and goes silent. The ringing is back and it feels like it’s louder than ever. The bar with its cozy interior and low lights usually puts him at ease. And the beer would normally do the rest but instead he feels the dread in his gut amplified.  
Crawling up in hollow spirals to throttle his heart and he can’t open his mouth to say any of it. “Something still bugging you, right? The job? It’s fine, it happens. It won’t go right every time we do this.”  
That wasn’t the only thing, but V was tired and he didn’t want to drag an evening down that was so far pretty okay. So he made an effort to bury his dread and takes a huge swig of his beer. “I’ll do better, next time.” Another long pull and his beer is empty. Now his head rings and swims. He shouldn’t have done that.  
Jackie stands and almost slaps V on the back, only stopping in the last moment when he remembers the state of him. “Come on, it’s late. Let’s go to bed.”

He follows Jackie up the stairs to the room they share. Mama Welles had insisted on preparing a seperate room for him the first time he showed up, but V felt so weird sleeping completely isolated in those first City nights that he ended up dragging his bedding over into Jackie’s room and slept on the carpet.  
By now he is used to being by himself and would have no problem staying alone. But Jackie is like his brother, and staying in one room is just what they did, so now it has a camp bed in it. They don’t start another conversation again, Jackie just goes to fall face first into his mattress.  
“G’night.” he mumbles and is almost immediately asleep.  
When V lies down he can feel the tiredness weighing on him like so many Militech containers. Everything hurts and he really wants to just go to sleep.  
So he waits.  
And waits.  
Checks the time and waits some more.  
Usually Jackie snores but tonight he is strangely quiet. And the quieter the room got, the louder the ringing became. It didn’t matter in which direction he moved or tried to lay down in. There was this looming pressure on his eardrums and he’s pretty sure he heard the ringing switch pitch. He softly clicks his fingers next to both ears.  
Just to make absolutely sure he could still hear something besides the tinnitus.

When morning comes, V has never been more happy to finally be doing something again. When the sun is up and the people are awake, it is easier to forget his own troubles. Distractions in Night City are never in short supply. Jackie makes sure to let him know during breakfast, that he is not to take up any jobs and is going to stay in and recover. V is annoyed about being babied but doesn’t have much room to argue, so he concedes.  
His whole body is still one ball of hurt but it doesn’t stop him from helping Mama Welles take the bar’s inventory. What does stop him in the end is Mama Welles herself, after she catches him trying to lift some heavy crates and almost getting buried underneath them, because his muscles locked up and he had to let it pull him down if he didn’t want to drop the fragile contents.  
She orders him to wipe down tables to get him out of her hair.  
When V sees that the tables are already clean and realises that it was just a ploy, he carefully shrugs on his jacket and goes out for a walk. Jackie isn’t home just yet, having gone out after lunch for...reasons. V is pretty sure, he’s doing something solo.  
Then he gets a text from Regina Jones. He tries to continue his walk but the need to check is overwhelming. Small gig. Just a bit of sleuthing. He could be done with this before dinner and no one would know. And he wouldn’t feel so fucking useless.

He is done before dinner.  
He is also in a lot more pain because he failed to take his target’s cyberware into account, which managed to snoop him out from way further than he had calculated. He tried counteracting by uploading the right signal that would let the cyberware believe the threat was dealt with.  
But he wasn’t quick enough and to avoid getting caught, decided to go over the railing of the bridge he was loitering on and hang from there until the target left. Needless to say, his arms feel like they are on fire. But being able to present the Welles with extra groceries and a bottle of the better booze is worth it.  
He doesn’t really fare better the second night. The pressure and ringing is back full force and V thinks he managed an hour at most. Come morning, his head feels heavy and his eyes are itchy. The lack of sleep is amping up his body’s aches and on top of that he now feels sick to his stomach.  
Getting up is grueling work. But he decides he isn’t quite done just yet. If he works hard today, he’ll be so tired, he’ll _have_ to sleep. He just simply won’t give his body any other option. Since Jackie still has him in merc timeout, he mops through the entire bar, takes out all the trash cans he can find, washes down his car and finally fixes that hack he installed on his deck weeks ago which was only ever supposed to be a temporary fix.  
Turns out, putting the condition for a loop at the beginning, shaves off milliseconds from the upload time. If he weren’t so tired, he’d be smiling in triumph.  
As it is, he can’t gather the energy. Dinner is a quiet affair. Jackie tries to pull him into conversation but V just gives him halfhearted noises of questionable meaning. After dinner he goes out for a jog, just to make sure he will really drop when he goes to bed.

In the end, his body did have another option to take. It was to simply not shut down. He tosses around the entire night. He may have been out for a couple of times but when the sun rises again, he might as well never have bothered. His muscles burn without him even moving them. There is a deep seated ache in his spine and his ribs feel like they’re piercing his lungs.  
When he tries to get up he has to sit down again because his legs feel like jelly. And not the good jelly that comes from exercise and adrenaline. This was just pure exhaustion.  
He feels the pressure of his own blood crawling around in his head, pulsing behind his eyes. His skin feels dry and pulled taut over his bones. V has a hollow rage bubbling up his gut. Now he couldn’t even sleep anymore.  
When he goes down for breakfast, it takes all he has to keep his mouth shut. Lest he say something he is going to regret. He ignores Jackie’s greeting and just sits down in a corner to move his cereal around.  
Not even his choom’s declaration of having found an easy job to start off again manages to put him in a good mood. The grimace he pulls to acknowledge Jackie’s words can barely be called a smile. He sees how Jackie gets a dark look on his face, how his smile falters. Hears him huff in annoyance as he fixes his own food. V almost feels guilty.

They’re job comes from Wakako, shadowing some corpo who embezzled a lot of money for someone so low in the hierarchy. And V is so busy being angry at his exhaustion and distraught at his helplessness that he loses the target. When he remembers that he is actually here on a job and not to bask in self pity, he cannot find the gonk they have been following for the past two hours. Jackie comes around one of the benches in the park he’s sitting in.  
“A’right, when we have evidence of him making contact with that Swedish butcher, we can finally pack it up. Where did he go?”  
Somehow V never noticed the chattering of the people seems especially inviting to listen to today. He wishes he could be in any other conversation, than this one.  
“I lost him.” V doesn’t look at him.  
“You what?”  
“I lost him!”  
Jackie lets out a litany of courses so fast, that even V’s translator unit can’t keep up. “Fucking hell, V! You have one job! This is the easiest possible job we could be landing. And now we have done all this work for nothing? Fucking, damn it!”  
Jackie kicks the trash can next to their bench and V fliches at the loud noise.  
“What are we going to tell Wakako? Sorry, we lost the rat. But look at what a lovely time we had at the park?”  
V clenches his teeth. His rising blood pressure does nothing to help the ringing. Jackie is angry. Jackie is upset and he’s saying these things because he doesn’t know how else to deal with it. “What’s it with you these past days anyway? I know you are still butthurt about the gig but would it kill you to not let this fuck up everything else?!”  
That’s it.  
“Shut the fuck up! You don’t know shit about anything! How about you do the leg work for once instead of holding me responsible for everything that goes wrong?!”  
V knows it’s unfair. Jackie does more than his fair share to get the jobs done and this one _was_ on him. But he is furious. And Jackie, his only target.  
“Well maybe I would if you’d finally deal with your shit instead of whine about it. Ever since you showed up I need to watch my back! Why the fuck are we even keeping you around?!”  
As soon as it is out, Jackie wishes he could take it back. He sees how V’s thoughts instantly slide down the wrong lane. “No, V, that’s not what I meant.” V scrambles up from his seat and walks away. “V! Come on, you know that’s not what I meant.” Jackie tries to catch up with him and almost gets his hands on his jacket but with a well timed side step around a group of corpos, he loses him in the mass of commuters coming up the underground exit. Jackie comes to a stop, groans as he rubs his neck. “Coño, V!”

Jackie decides to walk home. He is still angry at V fucking up the job. And now he is also angry at himself for saying what he did. He needs to take the time to wind down before he's going to confront V.  
They need to talk because something was off with him. He just hasn't figured out what.  
As he crosses a street, trying to get around some really drugged out guy swaying in the middle of the walkway, he stumbles over the corpo they lost. What were the fucking chances?  
He shakes his head to lose the thoughts about V lodged in his head. That is for later. Now he is given a chance to fix this.  
The corpo leads him all the way to City Centre where he meets his contact in broad daylight in the park of the company he embezzled from. If Jackie didn't dislike the guy's very face so much, he'd be impressed by the cajones on him. He snaps the images and records as much of their conversation as he can manage.  
When he sends it to Wakako it is deemed sufficient and Jackie could work with that. He resumes his way home but drops in with some friends in Heywood when he figures that he still needs a break from V. He's not as angry anymore but right now he needs to see other faces.  
It's almost nine when he's finally back home.

His mother greets him, telling him that she's almost done with the paperwork for the inspection they have coming up and to see if V could use his help in the kitchen. Jackie takes a deep breath to center himself and goes to find him.  
Whatever he's cooking, it smells good.  
V has a knack for it. Told him at some point that all Nomads learn to cook in some shape or form. And that he turned out to be just a little more interested than his peers. His cooking was nothing a corpo would be interested in but it was solid, delicious food. Almost always. He'd taken to experimenting and some of that was...not so good.  
But the V he finds standing in front of the pots doesn't look happy to be doing what he loves. He's hunched over into himself, his eyes dark and full of something between loathing and pain.  
Jackie feels a stab of guilt.  
Sure, V did fuck up their job by not paying attention but Jackie shouldn't have said what he did. He was so angry, he needed V to know it. And V himself hadn't been mincing his words either. But that was very unlike him.  
Ever since he had known him, he was always careful about what he said to whom, constantly scared that he is stepping on toes or making people uncomfortable to the point where he is willing to sacrifice his own wants just to not upset someone.  
It just didn't add up.  
Jackie decides to start off with the safe topic. "Hey V, what are you making?". And it gets him nowhere. V doesn't look up, doesn't stop his half hearted stirring and just shrugs his shoulders. Jackie takes another step towards him and tries the other end.  
"Listen, choom. We gotta talk. But...let's eat first?" V hits the spoon on the rim of the pot, turns off the stove and puts the lid on.  
"I'm not hungry."  
And he walks out of the room. The anger from earlier creeps back in on Jackie so he decides to leave it for now. There is time, later.  
So he sits with his mother and listens to her complement V's cooking and wondering where he went. Whether he overdid it with a gig so soon.  
Jackie hopes to catch V before turning in for the night but when he reaches his room, he finds V's cot empty and his things gone. He checks the guest room, but it's empty. He hears noise from one of the rooms downstairs, behind the bar.  
V apparently managed to move all of his things without them noticing any of it despite the kitchen door being open and the bar being empty. Sneaky fucker. Instead of facing him, he moved out, like a coward. Jackie is tired. So he decides to not bother and goes to his room. He slams his door louder than he intended. It feels good.

V doesn’t feel like he can handle sleeping in Jackie’s room. So he flees from the kitchen and collects his things to move them in the spare rooms downstairs. It is full of boxes and crates and some bottles of liquor that have never been sold.  
There is also an old red couch, scuffed from past use and dusty from current disuse. V actively doesn't think about where the stains on that thing come from. He lets his bag drop next to the couch and his blankets on it and immediately buries himself in them. Trying desperately to just fall unconscious.  
But he doesn’t. He stays with his pain and his tinnitus and his racing thoughts that haven't stopped circling since he lost their mark. He sits up again, mindlessly picking at the dissolving stitches on his face.  
He fucked up the job and he argued with Jackie and he ignored Seniora Welles. And then Jackie came to talk things out and he was so far up his own ass, he just left him there. V's feelings are so wound up in each other, he doesn't have the ability to pick them apart to present them to anyone let alone find any words for his friend that aren't hurtful.  
He feels himself spiraling again and tries to take a deep breath to calm down. But it doesn't help.  
His breathing becomes shorter and the walls seem to crawl closer, looming over him. Jackie was right. It feels like all he has done so far is putting him in danger. Why did they even keep him around?  
There isn't a point to him.  
He's a raging disaster and the Welles are putting up with him and get nothing out of it but failed gigs and some fucked up moody mess taking up space.  
Without his consent, one of his hands finds a box and hurls it against the wall. Being angry feels better than dipping into the well of hurt. So he lets his hands pick another one.

Jackie is halfway asleep when he hears crashing coming from downstairs. His first thought is some fucking gonk trying to break in. He jumps out of bed and grabs his gun, making no effort to mask his steps as he goes down the stairs.  
Let them know he's coming. He'll fucking flatline them.  
But the bar room is empty, the lights dimmed to a gentle glow. The crashing sounds again, this time from behind the bar. Jesus Christ, V.  
His mother appears at the top of the stairs with a concerned look on his face. Jackie shakes his head at her and makes a show of putting his gun away. No danger.  
"Habla con el, Jaquito. Por favor. I don't know what's wrong with him. He won't talk to me." she implores him. Another crash makes her tighten her arms around herself.  
"Will do, mom." Taking a deep breath to steel himself for what he will find, he goes to the storage room and opens the door.

He finds V tearing apart said storage room, hurling empty crates and boxes like a man possessed. Jackie can see bloody scratches littering his arms and tears brimming in his eyes. He takes a large step into the room, uncaring if he gets hit by debris and catches V's wrists to get him to stop.  
He feels the corded muscles move under his hands as V's tightens his grip on the crate, probably contemplating if fighting Jackie is worth it. V's breathing is coming in short labouring bursts, his face red and sweaty from his outburst.  
Jackie sees it in his whole body language that he won't be making any decision about the crate any time soon, so he makes it for him. He puts both of V's wrists into one of his hands and takes his other to grip the crate and pull.  
V doesn't immediately let go, so he gives a warning squeeze to his wrists. He let's go of the crate and Jackie pries it from his fingers and gently puts it down. But he doesn't let go of V's wrists just yet. "Okay, amigo, that's it. You and me? Talking. Now."

He expects him to start fighting his grip or maybe yell. Instead he slowly falls into Jackie's hold until he kneels on the floor, his arms still up at an awkward angle. "Nope, no way. You're not avoiding me by falling into yourself. Come up here."  
He pulls V to his feet and sits him down on the couch. Clearing away some wooden splinters, Jackie takes a seat next to him. He waits for V to come forward but he wants to be a stubborn gonk and remains in a mulish silence.  
"A'right. Have it your way. I got all night." He leans back in an overtly relaxed manner. V isn't getting out of this one. The minutes tick by and already he can see some nervous twitches appearing on him, most noticeably his leg starting to jump. If there is one thing, V hates, it's an uncomfortable silence.  
It takes a couple minutes more until V falls back into the couch, tears streaming down his face and a sob rending itself from his throat. Jackie leaned forward to grab his shoulder and bring him back down on himself, tucking V into his side and slinging his arm around his shaking shoulder.

"How can you even talk to me right now?!" V warbles out as he buries his face in Jackie’s shirt. Desperate sounding and painful looking sobs shake his frame and Jackie pulls him in a little tighter, lets him cry it all out into his shirt. “That’s it, let it out. It’s okay.” he soothes, rubbing V’s back gently.  
After a while, he has calmed down a lot. Jackie’s shirt is uncomfortably wet, but he doesn’t let go. V’s shaking is minimal and the sobbing only happens when he tries to breathe in too deeply. He buries himself harder into Jackie’s side, one last stolen comfort before he whispers: “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for fucking you guys over. I’ll be gone by the day after tomorrow, I promise. I’m sorry.”  
He can feel the tension in Jackie’s body and prepares himself for anything.

“Joder, V! What are you talking about?” Jackie sounds appalled. “You’re not going anywhere. What has gotten into you?” he squishes V in his arms, as if to squeeze the answer from him.  
“You were right to be angry with me, I fucked up the job and instead of trying to fix it I go off at you! You and your mom do everything to help me and I am being such a fucking leech. I said that you didn’t do your part but it was me who’s failing and...and you were right to say what you did. I only get you into trouble and you gain nothing! What if I get your mom into it, too? I…” Jackie places his hand over V’s face, pressing down a bit to make him shut up. “You done?” he waits a bit, “Okay, because now I have to tell you something. I’m sorry.” V tries to ask him what the hell he is on about, but Jackie’s hand muffles his words. “You’re not wrong, you fucked up. But so did I. I was angry and upset and honestly stretching myself a bit thin with the solo runs. Your words upset me and I lashed out.” V feels a revolting mix of shame and regret wash over him.

“I mixed somet stuff before thinking about it. Of course it's more dangerous now that you are here. Because I can actually take on the more dangerous jobs now, that you are with me, having my back. I shouldn’t have said that, because it was untrue. And I should have been a bit more observant. You weren’t just down that night from the failed job, were you?”  
V barely manages to shake his head. Jackie’s arms let up a bit and V moves off him, wiping at his face and sniffing his nose. And after a pause Jackie has zeroed right in on the actual issue.  
“It’s your ears, isn’t it? The only thing that really freaked you out in this whole thing. Did Vik give you bad news?”. With a gentle tone and absolutely no judgement.  
V didn’t deserve a friend like Jackie.  
“No.” V whispers. “Not really. It just...won’t stop ringing. Ever.” He can feel the tears gathering in his eyes again.  
“Oh, V.” Jackie’s voice is low and full of pity and V again feels like ripping something to shreds. But as soon as that thought has entered his head, he feels Jackie’s heavy hand come down on his back, carefully stroking back and forth.

“I’m sorry. That sucks.”  
And just like that, all the fight leaves V. If he won’t talk now, he won’t ever again.  
“It’s always there. No matter where I go or what I do it’s _always_ there. I can’t sleep anymore. It’s like someone hijacked my slots and just ripped the wires out.”  
V swallows and buries his head in his hands. “That’s why I didn’t focus on the work. It’s just constantly there. I was just...so tired. And angry. And...I’m terrified. I’m fucking useless to you like this!”

Jackie feels strangely peaceful as all those things finally slot into place. Why V was behaving so erratically and irrational. He was at the end of his line. And instead of asking for help, he tried hiding it from them. Rather suffering in silence than adding to their burdens.  
“What if it gets worse? What if I lose my hearing? I know there is so much worse but...I don’t want this!” He rubs furiously at his face until Jackie catches his hands and pulls them away. There’s blood on them and Jackie turns his head to inspect the stitches.  
“And now I’m fucking up Vik’s work. I yelled at him, too. He helps me and asks nothing for it and I yell at him, Jackie! What fucked up shithead does that?!” Jackie sighs and squeezes V’s hands.  
“Hey, listen to me.”  
  
He waits until V finally lifts his head high enough to look him in the eye. “This sucks. And you are allowed to feel bad about it. Just because someone has it worse, doesn’t make your problem insignificant.”  
His thumbs start stroking over the back of V’s hands. “And I know how much you love to listen to music. I am pretty sure you have your whole memories synched to your tracks, am I right? This is hard for you and that’s okay. And Vik? Vik loves you. He knows you are not a bad person. I promise you, he hasn’t taken this personally. He probably thinks you are the most lovable merc that has ever walked into his shop. Not the most handsome one, though, that is obviously me.”  
He smiles when V couldn’t help the wet laugh bursting out of him.  
“Did you apologize?”  
V nods.  
“Then it is done. You need to let it go.”  
“But…”  
“Ah, ah ah! No. Let it go, hombre.”  
V’s shoulders drop and he has an impressive scowl on his face again. Before V could even get it in his head to start over again he adds: “And you have apologized to me. And I forgive you. Do you forgive me?”  
He looks at Jackie as if he just tried to tell him the sun is purple. “Of course!” he utters, sounding almost offended at the idea that Jackie could think he wouldn’t be forgiven for something V doesn’t even think needs forgiving.  
  
“Then I’m glad we had a talk about it. Next time, promise me, let us talk earlier.” V nods, already retreating into himself again. Even Jackie was exhausted from their talk, he doesn’t want to know how an inherent introvert like V feels now.  
“Now, come on. It’s late. You’re not sleeping by yourself down here. Get your blanket.” Jackie orders and picks up V’s bag. They both try to be as quiet as possible, getting back to Jackie’s room.  
They spread out his things again, as if he never left in the first place. When V starts getting a gloomy look on his face again as he stares down at his bed, Jackie rummages through the drawer of his desk and calls V over.

“You know, you should have said something earlier. Because you aren’t my first choom getting saddled with tinnitus.” V gives him a questioning look as he presents him with a very old recorder. “We put together a playlist for her, specifically. All calm, quiet songs and at the end it fades into white noise. So it doesn’t wake you up once you’re down. List is nine hours long.”  
V holds the recorder in his hands like it holds the answers to the universe. And to a man in his situation it very may do.  
He tucks himself into bed, starts up the music and Jackie tells him stories about his friends until he finally, blissfully, falls asleep.


	4. Stay the grand finale

The next morning, V wakes up feeling better than he has for the past days and the gratitude he feels towards Jackie threatens to overwhelm him. He still feels weak, the ringing is still there but sleep was finally an option again. 

Jackie puts him back in merc timeout, but this time he can laugh about it. V apologizes to Seniora Welles for being a preem grade jackass. To atone for his sins, he sits through a half hour lecture on how he is being a gonk for thinking that he is a burden to them. And as a reward for coming back to his senses, she lets him deliver some items for customers. “Jaquito doesn’t need to know.” she tells him with a conspiratorial grin.

The next night, he manages to pull off the same miracle and the morning after that he isn’t worse. So they count it as a win. 

After the third successful night, Jackie decides he is going to take V out to get hammered. 

V is wary of jumping back too soon into everything but Jackie insists that he needs to get his mind off things, get out of his trot and live again.  
Also, Jackie met some Nomads on his solo runs, who were apparently very laid back and chill drunks. Which got him thinking about how he never saw V really drunk and wonders if he’s going to be the same. Wants to see him all squishy and chill for once. So, maybe this _isn’t_ just for V’s benefit. 

He calls up his chooms and sets a date for the next week. By that point, V’s body has recovered, his muscles back to their old strength and the bruising gone completely. The stitches on his temple have dissolved and the scars left over are only barely tender now. Jackie makes sure to let him know that the chicas are going to dig it. V flushes so hard, he looks like he may combust. 

With his body back on the mend, V’s faith in himself returns in bounds and leaps. The sly confidence he had managed to build up under Jackie’s tutelage, to replace his initial abrasive defensiveness, settles back in its rightful place and soon enough, it was as if he had never been anything else but a merc. 

The work they manage to get done is exemplary. 

The planned day was to be perfect. They would get smashed and not worry about anything for the next day. Just sleep in and have breakfast for lunch.

Jackie’s chooms meet them in Watson to walk to Lizzie’s Bar together. The loud music pulsing through the doors already puts him into an exceptional mood. Three songs and double the amount of drinks in and Jackie already has to dissuade his friends from trying to bully V into getting a raunchy BD. They managed to snag a nice corner in the club with comfortable sofas, when one of the girls comes by and offers them a “preem adventure”. V’s confidence may be better, but it doesn’t mean that he is able to stand up against everyone and he probably really wants Jackie’s friends to like him. While he’s sure V would enjoy it, he is also very sure that he will want to experience his first BD in privacy. And maybe something...beginner friendly. So he puts his foot down on this issue.

Jackie then turns away for _one_ moment, to chat up a nice lady standing next to their seats. He swears it was only a couple of minutes. But by the time he tunes his friends back in, they have started a drinking contest and V is already a quarter of the Tequila bottle in. Jackie doesn’t want to abandon his attempt to get the woman’s number so he returns to their talk for a bit longer. By the end of that, the bottle is empty. 

V turns out to be a sociable and talkative drunk. Now very quick to chip into conversations with his own opinions and anecdotes even if it doesn’t quite make sense. And also fond of singing, as it were. Jackie thinks that his voice would be okay, if he weren’t too drunk to actually hold the tune. 

But that is what they came here for, and those old Samurai tracks currently playing were never meant to be inoffensive radio songs anyway. So Jackie joins them in their drunken hollering about civil disobedience. 

It's not even midnight by the time they have emptied the second bottle between them. V is leaning back over a couch, completely oblivious to one of the Mox, a tall lady with huge muscles, draped over his lap and stroking his jaw, but listening intensely to the story she's telling him. Jackie may or may not have taken a picture for when his friend is sober again. 

When his chooms try to goad V into another round of combat drinking, he decides to step in. He wanted V to let loose, not be so smashed he won't remember anything. 

To placate the group, he offers that they hop to another bar to drink some more. Maybe on the way there, V will have a chance to sober up a bit. They agree and make to leave, Jackie shooing them on their way, promising they’ll catch up. “Come on, V. Let’s get you to some air.” he yells over the throbbing bass. It takes V a bit to find him, even though they are only a seat apart. He has a very concentrated look on his face, takes a deep breath and answers: “Nah.”

The woman in his lap laughs at his stubbornness. 

“Sheeee’s...telling...me a ssstory.”

Jackie laughs, too. “Let’s go, choom. You need a break. Lady’s been flirting with you for the past half hour and you didn’t even notice.” He turns to the woman. “Sorry about my friend, but he isn’t up for it tonight.” 

The Mox gets up without complaint, pushing her braided hair over her shoulder. 

“No worries. Had a feeling this wasn’t going where I wanted it to. Tell him I still had a good time, yeah?” she waves at V, who gives her a dopey smile, and weaves her way back into the dancing crowd. 

“Noooooo! How'sit end?!” V whines after her. “She’ll tell you, next time.” Jackie assures him before hoisting him up and maneuvering him to the exit. 

The frigid air hits him like a sledgehammer and he leaves V to lean next to the entrance for a minute. Being seated let him forget how much he actually had to drink, even though he wasn’t participating in the contest. When his head has stopped spinning so much, he turns around to gather V up again...and the gonk has walked down the building, leaning a bit too close to what appears to be a member of Maelstrom. 

“Oh no. “ Jackie hurries to intercept. He grabs V’s arm and tries to pull him away but for a drunk guy, he is very steady in his stance. 

“Hermano, no seas idiota. Let’s go. “

“Nu-uh. He’s looking funny...at me.” The Maelstromer looks up with an annoyed expression on his face. “The fuck you want, cunt?”.  
V leans back looking at Johnny with an ‘I told you so’ expression on his face. “Get your fucking bitch out of my face.” the stranger growls out and before Jackie can make any efforts in placating the guy, V makes as if to turn away. Then snaps back around and sucker punches the Maelstromer in the face. The guy goes sprawling to the floor, hands pressed to his bleeding nose.  
“Ha! Took that just like your mom!” V crows out.  
Jackie looks at his friend, completely astonished. Where did _that_ come from? Regardless, they need to be quick now. The fucker on the ground was probably furious and the last thing they needed was a rep with Maelstrom. Jackie grabs V by the jacket and runs. When they are about a block away from the bar, he gasps out: “What the fuck?”. His friend doesn’t answer him, too distracted by a shop window displaying holographic fish. So he repeats himself: “What the fuck, V?” 

V humms, contemplative. 

“You know…we should...like, take the job. With the car. You know?” 

“What car?!” Jackie cannot follow his leap. 

“Like...the good one. And then tell ‘em we...lost it. And then keep it?” 

“What job?” 

V comes to a sudden stop, contemplating while staring at his shoes. 

“I forgot.” he decides and walks on. 

Jackie feels completely lost. Of course, he has never seen V this drunk before. But he hadn’t expected this. 

Drunk V in a controlled environment with limited stimulus? Chatty goof that sings off-key. Introduced to the fresh air and an open environment? He suddenly does mean. And he gets ideas. 

Which he apparently did just now, pulling out of Jackie’s grip and walking down a mildly illuminated alleyway. “V, no! Get back here!”  
A bunch of 6th Street members are sitting in this alley around an old crate, drinking something self made and smoking something probably illegal. They look a bit funny, being caught in the middle of a card game. “Oooh! I know that!” exclaims V and bounds over to them, completely free of his usual inhibitions about strangers. 

Before the group can object, V insists that he’s being dealt in and when Jackie asks him what the hell he’s doing, he just answers in delight: “Beheading sheep!” like a complete cryptid. 

The 6th Street guys are very obviously not delighted by some random gonk coming up to them and butting into their game. “Get lost, you stupid fuck!” says one, with a cybernetic limb so full of knives, Jakie wonders why he even bothered trying to keep the shape of an arm. But before they can do something, V has grabbed a couple of cards and stares at them for a moment when another 6ht Street member leans over to whisper something into knife-arm's ear. 

Then he slaps V’s cards out of his hands scattering them around. Knife-arm stands and topples the crate, pulling one of his knives, pointing it into V’s face. “I know you. You’re those new solo fuckers from around Heywood every one seems to be going on about recently, right?” Knife-arm is suddenly very familiar to Jackie. They had met, pursuing the same job. And managed to trick him. Did him pretty dirty, too. 

“V, we need to delta!” Jackie yells and grabs his choom. He hurls a dumpster between them and the gang and hightails it out. And of course, they follow.  
“This was supposed to be a fun night out!” Jackie complains as he pulls V into a larger street, hoping to dissuade the gang from an altercation when too many witnesses are around. They reach a market and Jackie makes a mad dive between the booths, shoving goods and people, trying to get out of sight. He stops behind a food stand, back pressed to the grill, with the owner giving him an incredulous look. He hears a commotion from the direction he came from. 6th Street managed to follow them this far, it seems. He looks down and realises, he may still be holding V’s jacket, but the jacket was no longer holding V. Before he can really think about this, his phone rings and the call opens in his viewport. “Heeeeeeey, Jackie!” his friends, in a dark room with a lot of bottles. “Where the fuck are you?!” He peaks over the grill in a frantic lookout for his wayward Nomad. 

“Escucha, we’re on our way. See you soon!” Jackie forces out and ends the call as quickly as he can. He finds V, a couple booths over, sloppily swiping some faded Samurai merch, the vendor too distracted by a customer to notice. Jackie jumps out to go and grab him but when he gets around the booth he was hiding behind, the gongk is gone. 

He turns around himself but he cannot find him again. Stepping into the next row, a hand comes around his arm and another clumsily pats on his mouth. He turns his face away from under the hand and twists his arm out of the grip. V stood before him, a Samurai cap sitting crookedly on his head and a Silverhand pin on his T-Shirt. “Jackie, ssssshhhhh!” he urges him and then points to their left where the 6th Street guys are passing through the stands, trying to find them. Then he feels V’s fingers worming between his to dislodge the jacket he is still holding onto. He almost throws something off a table, when he fights his way back into the sleeves. And right at that moment, 6th Street looks up and catches sight of them.  
“Come on!” this time it is Jackie’s turn to get grabbed and pulled along the market. “Come on, come on!” V insists, pulling them through the market and back onto the street. 6th Street is hot on their heels, knife-arm yelling obscenities after them.  
Suddenly, V pulls Jackie to the left and then shoves him through a ripped chain link fence. A plastic sign scratches his face, as he’s shoved through, but he is able to make it out: ‘Construction site - Militech authorized personnel only’. “Follow me!” V has also slipped through the fence and is already several steps into the site. Jackie turns around and sees the 6th Street boys standing indecisively outside the fence. They didn’t dare to break into corpo property, especially not into something Militech owns. Clever fuckers. But he’d rather face down 6th Street.

“V, no! We can’t be here! This is corpo owned!”

But he doesn’t listen, already halfway to a building that is still in progress. The dark facade is missing in places and it doesn’t have any windows. Jackie runs after him. Whoever oversees this site probably already knows someone is in here. The lobby of the building is filled with machines and off-line pack-drones, none of the corpo comforts of expensive marble and gold inlays visible yet. He hears V stomping up the stairs to his right, sees his muddy footprints in the debris on the floor. Jackie runs after him. They really had to get out of here.  
A new observation he could file away for next time: drunk V apparently has no regard for his own body’s limits. Jackie is out of breath by the 20th floor, and he hasn’t spent days recovering from injuries. V on the other hand is still running up. He catches sight of him again on the 31st, outside on a large terrace that is barely floored and has no guard railing. And right at the edge, swaying in the wind, stands V seemingly lost in thought as he stares down into certain death.

He bolts after him, mindless of his burning lungs. “Jesucristo, V! Get away from there!”  
V turns, looking at him with a bewildered expression, like he’s seeing Jackie for the first time tonight. There is a sudden gust of wind, pulling loose debris across the terrace, clattering against the facade or falling off the edge. Jackie makes a mad dash across the distance and pulls V away towards the door frame. As if a switch was flipped, V suddenly digs his fingers into Jackie’s arms, eyes wide and his face filled with terror.  
“Jackie, why are we on a roof?!”  
“What do you mean, why are we on a roof? It was your fucking idea!”  
V shakes his head. “No way, no...we wanted to go outside, yes. But...how did we get here?!” there was panic creeping into his voice. Jackie couldn’t believe it. Apparently from the moment they left Lizzi’s, through 6th Street to breaking and entering into a Militech site was one big black out for him. A sound, like static flashed in the air and then a drone rose into the air, shining a bright light onto them.  
“Fuck! We gotta go!” He pulls V back into the building and races them down the stairs, slipping on the mud they have trudged in on their way up. V’s breathing hard and trying his best not to fall over his own feet. As they reach the foyer, it is illuminated by the occasional flash of light of a drone, circling the building, trying to find them. There are police sirens in the distance. “If we’re fast, we can get out the way we got in.” Jackie pulls him out of the building when the drone flies around the building to inspect the other side. They make a wild dash over the agitated ground, somehow not falling over the tools lying around, almost completely invisible in the dark. Jackie squeezes them through the fence and they manage to get a running start, just as the first police car comes into sight. “Run!” he yells, pushing V through a puddle to get the mud off their boots. “Run and don’t stop!”  
To escape the cops they run at least two blocks, climb a fence to cross through a backyard and by the time they get the chance to cower down into some dank alley, their lungs feel ready to jump out of their chests. V falls on his ass and keels over, lying on the wet pavement and staying there. Jackie wishes he could do better, but his legs refuse to do anything but collapse. The noise of the city pour into their hiding place but none of it sounds like a cop pursuing them. The only thing they manage for the next couple minutes is trying to breathe. After a while, V pushes himself upright to lean back against the alley, rubbing his hands over his face and then grimacing when he smears mud all over it. When he looks over, his eyes are clearer than they have been for a time. The running and the adrenaline must have sobered him up quite a bit.  
  
“That...hurt.”  
Jackie can’t answer him. His chest still feels like it is squeezing down on his heart. Maybe he should pick up jogging again, get some extra cardio.  
“How did we get there?”  
He laughs, still feeling cheated that V can’t remember any of it.  
“We wanted to go to another bar.”  
“Yeah...I remember that.”  
“And then you punched some guy in the face.”  
“I _what_ ?” V looks at him like he just told him the worst lie in history. Jackie couldn’t help but cackle. “Then, you started blabbing about some job. And _then_ you found some 6th Street guys and demanded to be dealt into their card game.”  
“That...wait. I remember that...I think?”  
“You told me you are beheading sheep.”  
V claps his hands together, like he just figured something out. “I thought I was making that up! I haven’t seen anyone play that game outside of the Bakkers!”  
“So, it’s really called that?” Jackie can’t help but wonder.

“Nah...it’s called Schafkopf. Or Sheepshead, I guess. But in German, if you make a verb out of it, it also sounds like ‘beheading sheep’.”  
“Your language is weird.”  
“Your _face_ is weird!”

They both laugh, still breathless. Jackie drags himself further back to lean with V against the wall.  
“What then?”  
“Remember that crazy fucker we surprised, trying to upload the virus in that gonk’s server room that was filled with all those plastic drapes?”  
“You mean...the one where we offered to upload his payload too but we didn’t and just tagged his signature to the end of ours so when they found out about it he got swatted?”  
“Yeah...that’s the one. Well, that was him and his chooms you accosted back there.”  
“Oh god.”  
“Yep. So we ran to hide in a market. You got away from me. Wanna know more?”  
V slings his arms around his knees and hides his face behind them. “Noooo!”  
“Rhetorical question, you’re hearing it anyway. Ever wondered where you got that hat?”  
Only now did he realise that he is wearing a cap with the Samurai logo on it. He takes it off and wonders how he can have no memory of this. And when he is done inspecting that, Jackie nods towards his shirt “You know, I didn’t know you are crushing on some rocker boy.” And V looks down to find a tacky pin with Johnny Silverhand’s face in a sparkly heart on it. “Please don’t ever mention this to anyone. I swear, I got over it when I was seventeen.”  
He pries the pin from his shirt and tosses it into the litter, but stuffs the cap into his jacket. Jackie has a smug grin on his face.

“Well, apparently not. It’s kinda cute, you being such a little fanboy.”  
“I didn’t bankrupt myself with this, right? Those merch peddlers are pricey...”  
“Oh no. No, no, no, no. You stole that.” V groans and goes back to hiding in his own arms.  
“You know what? I like you back sober and dealing with your shame. Lemme catch you up to the rest.” The whine that escapes from the arms may have been a dejected ‘kill me please’. 

“Well, of course they found us. Could have been chance, but I like to think it was because you were hilariously incapable of putting on your jaket without clearing tables left and right. After you _shushed_ me, because apparently _I_ was making the commotion?” V doesn’t offer any commentary and continues to pretend to not be here.  
“Then you dragged me along and broke into a Militech construction site. Where you decided it is a good idea to sprint up a half finished building and then nearly fell off a ledge.”  
“Why would I even do that?!”  
“No idea. But then the drone showed up and the cops and we booked it out of there. But I think you can remember that part again, can’t you?”

“Yeah..” V has come out of hiding and is picking at the dirt on his face. They spend a couple moments in silence before V breaks it again.  
“You know...despite all this...and I’m sorry I dragged you into this mess. But...I’m glad we went out?”  
“Yeah?  
“Yeah.” he stops again and looks up at the sky, contemplating. “I didn’t hear the ringing the entire evening, until now.” He looks back to Jackie, who has a warm smile on his face. “I think...it was there? Probably. It’s back now but...it’s less. It’s probably always going to be there. But now...I feel like I have some control over it, you know? Like...it can’t take all of me, if I don’t let it.” 

Jackie puts a hand on his shoulder and squeezes affectionately. “That’s the spirit. From what my friend from back when told me, it’s a mind over matter thing. If you give it attention it will be all you can focus on. You have to get your brain to ignore it. You’ll probably have some episodes where it gets worse. But...you can deal with it. You know that now.” 

“Why didn’t you tell me that from the start?” V sounds a bit hurt.  
“Hermano, you were losing sleep over this and raging in our storage room, thinking it’s the end of the world. Would you really have believed me?”  
“Probably not...no.”  
They sit together for a bit more before Jackie decides to get up from the floor.  
“A’right, we can either go to the bar the others went to, or we can go home. Up to you.” V thinks a bit about it. “I’m...actually kinda tired. Would you mind if we went back home?”  
“Not at all. I’m actually pretty done myself. The others probably forgot about us, anyway. They called me, when I was hiding in the market? The amount of bottles I saw in the background is probably going to kill them.” He reaches his hand to V and pulls him up. 

“Hey, Jackie?” V asks, as they leave the alley to find their way home.  
“Hm?”  
“Did you know, breaking and entering is a crime even before you klep something?” 

When they manage to crawl out of their beds in the afternoon the next day, with a thundering headache and a wish for sudden death, mama Welles is waiting for them in the kitchen. With breakfast for lunch, the newspaper on the table, showing a barely recognizable picture of them on the terrace of the Militech building, and an angry scowl on her face. “You’re lucky that drone’s face recognition was defective. You want to explain this to me?”  
Jackie does and V nods at the right times. They didn’t punch a Maelstromer, they didn’t pick a fight with a gang and they didn’t steal from a booth. They didn’t break into anywhere, they were drunk and merely got lost and it is all blown out of proportion. 

Mama Welles scoffs at them when they are done. As they scarf down their food she tells them about one of her drunken escapades. It’s wild. Apparently, they used to party harder, back in the days.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well...that would be it. Chapter has been done for some while, it just never felt right. Still doesn't. But done is better than perfect.  
> Now I need to fill up my mind with more Cyberpunk stuff, in hopes of managing another story.  
> Depression took my drive, but I don't want the game to leave me just yet.  
> Regardless, this was a lot of fun. Thanks for reading!


End file.
